eGPU Skill

<<<<<<< HEAD External GPU knowledge for hardware detection, bandwidth analysis, hotplug recovery, and Project's GPU infrastructure.

External GPU knowledge for hardware detection, bandwidth analysis, hotplug recovery, and Basin's GPU infrastructure.

origin/main

Trigger Conditions

• User asks about eGPU, external GPU, or Thunderbolt GPU
• Working on GPU hotplug, device lifecycle, or workload migration
• Questions about Thunderbolt bandwidth, PCIe tunneling, or GPU enclosures
• Multi-GPU routing, failover, or compute offloading
• Apple Silicon eGPU limitations <<<<<<< HEAD
• Project's

  gpu-display/src/egpu.rs

  or

  gpu-runtime/src/workload_migrator.rs

  =======
• Basin's

  basin-display/src/egpu.rs

  or

  basin-gpu/src/workload_migrator.rs

origin/main

What Is an eGPU?

An external GPU (eGPU) is a desktop-class GPU housed in an external enclosure, connected to a computer via Thunderbolt. It tunnels PCIe over the Thunderbolt cable, giving laptops and compact machines access to high-end GPU compute.

Physical Stack

┌────────────────────┐     Thunderbolt Cable     ┌──────────────────────┐
│  Host Computer     │  ◄═══════════════════════► │  eGPU Enclosure      │
│  (TB Controller)   │   PCIe tunneled over TB    │  (TB Controller)     │
│                    │                            │  ┌────────────────┐  │
│  CPU ◄── PCIe ──►  │                            │  │ Desktop GPU    │  │
│  iGPU              │                            │  │ (RTX 4090,     │  │
│                    │                            │  │  RX 7900 XTX,  │  │
│                    │                            │  │  etc.)         │  │
└────────────────────┘                            │  └────────────────┘  │
                                                  │  PSU (500-700W)     │
                                                  └──────────────────────┘

Thunderbolt Bandwidth

Internal PCIe 4.0 x16 = ~32 GB/s -- so even TB5 is ~5x less bandwidth than a slot.

Performance Implications

Compute-bound workloads (shader-heavy, large VRAM working sets):

• eGPU performs at 85-95% of internal GPU
• Hash joins, e-graph saturation, matrix multiply, neural net inference

Bandwidth-bound workloads (constant CPU↔GPU data transfer):

• eGPU performs at 15-40% of internal GPU
• Small batch sizes, frequent readback, streaming data

Rule of thumb: If the GPU kernel runs >1ms per dispatch, the TB overhead is negligible.

OS-Level Detection

macOS (IOKit)

IORegistry hierarchy:
  AppleThunderboltNHIType4 (or Type3/Type5)
    └── IOThunderboltPort
        └── IOPCIDevice (GPU)
            └── AGXAccelerator or IOGPUDevice

• is_egpu()

  checks for

  Thunderbolt

  parent service in IORegistry
• TB version detected via

  AppleThunderboltNHIType{1..5}

  class name
• Metal API:

  MTLDevice.isRemovable

  (Intel Macs only)

Apple Silicon note: macOS officially dropped eGPU support on Apple Silicon. The TB hardware can still tunnel PCIe, but macOS won't render graphics to an external AMD/NVIDIA GPU. Compute-only use requires custom drivers.

Linux (udev/DRM)

# Detect Thunderbolt devices
cat /sys/bus/thunderbolt/devices/*/device_name

# Check if GPU is on Thunderbolt bus
udevadm info /sys/class/drm/card1 | grep THUNDERBOLT

# DRM hotplug events
inotifywait /sys/class/drm/

• udev rules trigger on TB device add/remove
• DRM subsystem emits hotplug events
• sysfs:

  /sys/bus/thunderbolt/devices/*/authorized

wgpu (Cross-Platform)

// wgpu device-lost callback
device.on_uncaptured_error(|error| {
    if matches!(error, wgpu::Error::DeviceLost { .. }) {
        // GPU disconnected - trigger migration
    }
});

<<<<<<< HEAD

Project eGPU Infrastructure

=======

Basin eGPU Infrastructure

origin/main

Key Files

crates/gpu-display/src/egpu.rs

EGpuManager

EGpuDevice

ThunderboltMesh

AppleSiliconEGpuInfo

crates/gpu-runtime/src/device_lifecycle.rs

GpuDeviceRegistry

GpuDeviceState

crates/gpu-runtime/src/workload_migrator.rs

WorkloadMigrator

MigrationConfig

MigrationStrategy

crates/gpu-runtime/src/workload_checkpoint.rs

CheckpointManager

Checkpointable

foundation/hardware-layer/src/iokit.rs

is_egpu()

crates/basin-display/src/egpu.rs

EGpuManager

EGpuDevice

ThunderboltMesh

AppleSiliconEGpuInfo

crates/basin-gpu/src/device_lifecycle.rs

GpuDeviceRegistry

GpuDeviceState

crates/basin-gpu/src/workload_migrator.rs

WorkloadMigrator

MigrationConfig

MigrationStrategy

crates/basin-gpu/src/workload_checkpoint.rs

CheckpointManager

Checkpointable

foundation/basin-hardware/src/iokit.rs

is_egpu()

origin/main |

docs/design/EGPU_HOTPLUG_ROADMAP.md

| 5-phase implementation plan |

Core Types

// EGpuDevice - full device info
pub struct EGpuDevice {
    pub gpu: GpuDevice,
    pub enclosure_name: Option<String>,
    pub thunderbolt_port: u8,
    pub thunderbolt_speed: ThunderboltSpeed,  // TB1..TB5
    pub power_delivery_watts: Option<u32>,
    pub power_state: EGpuPowerState,          // Active/Idle/Suspended/Disconnected
    pub has_displays: bool,
    pub display_ids: Vec<DisplayId>,
}

// EGpuEvent - hotplug lifecycle
pub enum EGpuEvent {
    Connected { device, thunderbolt_port },
    Disconnected { device_id, thunderbolt_port, graceful },
    LinkSpeedChanged { device_id, old_speed, new_speed },
    PowerStateChanged { device_id, state },
    MigrationStarted { device_id, target_gpu },
    MigrationCompleted { device_id, target_gpu, duration_ms },
}

// ThunderboltSpeed - link speed enum
pub enum ThunderboltSpeed { TB1, TB2, TB3, TB4, TB5 }

EGpuManager Usage

<<<<<<< HEAD
use gpu_display::egpu::EGpuManager;
=======
use basin_display::egpu::EGpuManager;
>>>>>>> origin/main

let manager = EGpuManager::new();  // Auto-enumerates
manager.start_monitoring()?;       // Hotplug events

// Register callback
manager.on_event(Box::new(|event| match event {
    EGpuEvent::Disconnected { device_id, graceful, .. } => {
        if !graceful {
            // Surprise disconnect - trigger migration
        }
    }
    _ => {}
}));

// Safe disconnect (migrates workloads first)
manager.safe_disconnect(gpu_id)?;

Workload Migration

<<<<<<< HEAD
use gpu_runtime::workload_migrator::{WorkloadMigrator, MigrationConfig, MigrationStrategy};
=======
use basin_gpu::workload_migrator::{WorkloadMigrator, MigrationConfig, MigrationStrategy};
>>>>>>> origin/main

let config = MigrationConfig {
    strategy: MigrationStrategy::Eager,
    max_concurrent_migrations: 4,
    migration_timeout: Duration::from_secs(30),
    prefer_cpu_fallback: true,
    ..Default::default()
};

// Migration flow:
// 1. GPU disconnect detected (device_lifecycle callback)
// 2. WorkloadMigrator::on_device_failure called
// 3. Checkpoint GPU state (buffers, compute state)
// 4. Select target device (integrated GPU, another eGPU, or CPU)
// 5. Restore state on target
// 6. Resume execution from checkpoint

Migration Strategies

Thunderbolt Mesh Networking

<<<<<<< HEAD Project supports TB mesh networking for GPU cluster communication (IP over Thunderbolt):

use gpu_display::egpu::ThunderboltMesh;
=======
Basin supports TB mesh networking for GPU cluster communication (IP over Thunderbolt):

```rust
use basin_display::egpu::ThunderboltMesh;
>>>>>>> origin/main

let mesh = ThunderboltMesh::discover()?;
println!("Active peers: {}", mesh.active_peer_count());
println!("Aggregate bandwidth: {} Gbps", mesh.total_bandwidth_gbps);

if let Some(best) = mesh.best_peer() {
    // Lowest latency peer for frame streaming
    println!("{} @ {}us latency", best.hostname, best.latency_us);
}

<<<<<<< HEAD

Implementation Status (Project)

=======

Implementation Status (Basin)

origin/main

is_egpu()

See

docs/design/EGPU_HOTPLUG_ROADMAP.md

Common eGPU Enclosures

When to Use eGPU vs Cloud GPU